Broadside (TV series)

Broadside is an American sitcom that aired on ABC during the 1964–1965 TV season. The series, produced by McHale's Navy creator Edward Montagne, starred Kathleen Nolan, formerly of The Real McCoys.

Synopsis

The series centered on the women of the Navy (WAVES) on "a supply base somewhere in the South Pacific, 1944," who found themselves transferred to the island of Ranakai to run the motorpool in an otherwise all-male environment. Lt. Anne Morgan (Kathleen Nolan) was in command of the man-crazy, wisecracking Selma Kowalski (Sheila James), the alternately chipper and worried Molly McGuire (Lois Roberts), the slow-witted blonde and former exotic dancer Roberta Love (Joan Staley), and the unit's only male recruit, Marion Botnik (Jimmy Boyd), assigned to the WAVES due to a clerical error.

Their nemesis was the rarefied Commander Roger Adrian (Edward Andrews), who regarded the war as a major intrusion on his idyllic, luxurious lifestyle; he felt that the WAVES experiment would attract official government supervision, endangering his private paradise. Adrian and his easily flustered junior officer Ensign Beasley (George Furth) constantly conspired to get rid of the WAVES, while executive officer Lt. Max Trotter (Dick Sargent) and streetwise sailor Nicky D'Angelo (Don Edmonds) sided with the girls in their counter-attacks on Adrian. Completing the ensemble was Adrian's fussy personal chef Bernard (Richard Jury).

Producer Montagne had produced movie short subjects starring comedian Arnold Stang in the early 1950s. Midway through the Broadside run, Montagne recruited Stang to join the series and offered him co-star billing. Stang was then co-starring with the national touring company of the Broadway hit A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and left the show on October 3, 1964 to join Montagne. Stang replaced both Richard Jury and Don Edmonds in the ensemble cast. He appeared as outspoken master chef Stanley Stubbs, reunited with his high-school classmate Selma of the WAVES motorpool.

Broadside boasted clever scripts and good direction by the McHale's Navy staff, and enthusiastic performances by the ensemble cast. As it was a rule that vehicles on set could only be operated by union members, the cast playing drivers got honorary Teamsters’ cards.

Though ratings were not bad, the series ran for just a single season. The executives at Universal Studios felt the tropical exteriors being used by Broadside and McHale's Navy—and nothing else—were taking up too much space on the backlot, so Broadside was canceled and the setting for McHale's Navy was changed to Italy, which could be shot on the studio's more frequently used sets with European facades. Arnold Stang did not appear in the last two episodes of the network run; ABC had pre-empted the show twice, and these shelved episodes with departed co-star Don Edmonds were burned off to finish the run.

Cast

• Kathleen Nolan as Lieutenant Anne Morgan
• Edward Andrews as Commander Roger Adrian
• Dick Sargent as Lieutenant Maxwell Trotter
• Jimmy Boyd as Marion Botnik
• George Furth as Ensign Beasley
• Sheila James as Selma Kowalski
• Lois Roberts (actress) as Molly Maguire
• Joan Staley as Roberta Love
• Arnold Stang as Seaman 1st Class Stanley Stubbs

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date

External links

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